Charlton Comics Part 1
Welcome back to the Ottawa Comic Book Guy blog. This episode will (and probably the next) will feature Charlton Comics, a company that existed in one form or another from 1944 (although they didn't start doing comic books until after World War II in 1946) until 1986. Although they never quite got as big as the big two, or Gold Key/Dell, they managed to stay alive by having some great characters, great talent working for them (very cheaply) and having some serious business savvy to stay afloat during the lean times. The company known as Charlton began as a partnership of John Santangelo Sr. and Ed Levy in 1944. The founders had one of the most unusual origin story's for a partnership, they met while in prison together. Santangelo had been sent up river for a year and a day for violating the Copyright Act of 1928 and publishing sheet music without proper licensing and Levy, an attorney by trade until he was convicted of illegally appropriating trust funds. Once they were ...